How Holly Parker Gets By

The Daily Press investigates how low-income people in Hampton Roads juggle five basic necessities.

Holly Parker hangs one of her latest creations inside the Java 149 coffee store in downtown Suffolk, where she sells self-made items to try to make ends meet.

Buddy Norris/Daily Press

"If you have to choose between paying the rent and letting the lights go out," said Holly Parker, a Suffolk mother with three kids at home, "you let the lights go out."

A few months ago, Parker worked as a server at Fire Mountain Grill and as a caregiver with A1 Home Healthcare. Then her car broke down. Repairs would cost $1,500. The restaurant was a $15 cab ride each way, and without her own car she couldn't get around the rural community to reach her healthcare clients. She couldn't get to either job and soon her $750 monthly rent - and the related hundreds of dollars in gas and electric bills - was impossible to pay.

"I pinched back on food," she said. "I shopped at thrift stores for my children's clothes. "I was asking friends for clothes their children had grown out of. I was calling churches to see what days they had food to give away."

Parker now lives with a friend in downtown Suffolk. She'll be able to stay there until shortly after Christmas, but knows she needs to find a new place.

She earned some money doing seasonal work for The Salvation Army, and is making gift baskets and art to sell at local stores while looking for a full-time job and saving for a deposit on a new apartment.The Heavy Burden of Shelter